Raise your hand if you have piles of handwork projects waiting to be finished. Oh boy Friends, this is sooooo me. I have plenty of opportunity to do the handwork while my kids are at swim team, at violin lessons, at play dates and at the beach. However, I am never home long enough to sit at my sewing machine to complete these projects. As a result, I came up with this quick embroidery hoop frame as a solution for some of my smaller projects.
Wooden embroidery hoops make for super easy, super cheap and super classic frames for your small handwork projects. It doesn’t require measuring or sewing, just an embroidery hoop, a pencil, a piece of cardboard and a piece of card stock, paper scissor and pinking shears, if you want.
Quick Embroidery Hoop Frame
To start, you will need to a piece of cardboard. I hit the recycling bin for a piece of sturdy cardboard from a box that once housed garbage bags, I think. Trace the inside of your hoop on the cardboard and cut it out. Be sure to keep the pencil as close to the hoop as you can. You will want the cardboard to be a little tight. It will be easier to trim it a little if you need to rather than cut another whole circle.
Next, trace the hoop again (or the cardboard circle) onto your card stock and cut it out.
Put your fabric into the hoop and pull it taut. Trim the excess fabric to about an inch or an inch and half. In doubt, more is better. If you are worried that your fabric might fray, trim it with pinking shears.
Wrap your fabric around the inside of the hoop, tucking the fabric under the inside hoop.
Push the cardboard into place.
Cover the ugly cardboard with card stock.
So easy and so done. Mine took about 15 minutes and that included stopping to take pictures for the blog!
Additional Notes about this Quick Embroidery Hoop Frame and Project
- The top edge of my fabric what a little short because this was not part of my original plan for framing. In the future, I would definitely make sure I had more selvage to be sure that the fabric was tucked all the way around. I might add a little glue when I put it away for the season.
- This is a Crabapple Hill Studio pattern call 3-Cheers. It was a free pattern several years ago (I just got around to it!) and I don’t think that it is available any longer. Although, there are a few other free patterns currently on her site and of course any number that you can buy. This is not an affiliate link. I just promote them because I love them!
- My hoop was 8 inches because that’s what fit my project and the amount of fabric I had as a border. You can of course do this with any sized hoop–that’s the beauty of tracing the inside of the hoop to get your measurements.
- And those “French knots” on the seat totally make use of my French Knot Hack.
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